


Close To You

by genmitsu



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Hand Jobs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 13:01:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21271460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genmitsu/pseuds/genmitsu
Summary: Oswald has a terrible dream.Jim is taking care of him when he wakes up.





	Close To You

Dreams, anxious, worrying, dreams when you’re half-aware it’s a dream. Dreams that leave you gasping as you wake up drenched in cold sweat and wondering if it’s real or if it’s still a dream. And if anyone asked, Oswald wouldn’t have been able to tell what was so scary about those visions. They’re never fully formed, but there’s fear, there’s uncertainty, there’s a search for something important, so important, and at the same time - escape. These dreams exhaust him.

Oswald fights them the old and tried way, getting decently drunk the closer the bedtime draws. Sometimes he even uses sleeping pills but he trusts them a lot less than he does drink. Sleeping pills add something else to his dreams, something worrying in a different way, something that breaks through the haze of fear and becomes arousal - and that sets Oswald even more on edge.

Anxiety, suspense, the sense of impending doom, something dangerous lurking just there, at arm’s length, at a breath’s distance, should you just turn around.

Don’t turn around.

Oswald runs, gasping, cursing his bad leg and knowing that soon he’ll get caught. His chest feels constricted, he can’t take in air.

He stumbles.

Jerks, waking up and gasping for air, but his eyes are covered by a warm hand.

“Shh… it’s okay.”

“Jim?”

“Were you expecting someone else? There, there…” his thumb slides lower, caressing Oswald’s cheekbone. “Don’t open your eyes. It’s just a bad dream.”

Oswald inhales brokenly. His heart is still thumping madly in his throat, not letting him settle down. But the hand that touches him is so warm, so safe, it stays a pleasant weight over his eyelids and he tries to concentrate on that.

“What were you dreaming about?” Jim asks, tenderly attentive.

“I don’t know…” Oswald tries breathing deeper. That should be helping, right? “But it was so bad, I was so scared, Jim! I didn’t know what to do. I ran and I ran and it was getting closer, and I fell--"

“There now, don’t work yourself up. It’s alright. I’m already here.”

Jim’s voice soothes him, and it also makes him aroused. This voice always had so much in it - Jim’s self-assuredness, his determination, his firmness that infuriated Oswald so much and impressed Oswald so much; his low, rumbling cadences promised something that always made Oswald’s knees weak. And now, with this voice right there, so soft and tender, and Jim’s hand still touching him… you’d have to be a saint, and Oswald was very far from being one.

“I see someone’s happy to see me,” that slight chuckle in his voice almost makes Oswald moan and he bites on his lip, trying to rein the sound in.

“Jim, I…”

What can he say? It’s pointless to deny the obvious but apologizing for his body’s reaction to the person he loves isn’t Oswald’s intention either.

“I’m not opposed to letting off some steam…” the voice rumbles in his ear so sweetly, and the hand, the other one, slides down Oswald’s body, lower, lower, caressing his stomach, lingering on his thigh, and finally settling hotly between his legs.

Oswald suddenly realizes he’s only wearing some light pyjamas. How did it happen that he’s with Jim alone and so underdressed? He can’t recall anything before his awakening… Then the hand grasps his cock firmer, demanding his undivided attention, and Oswald inhales sharply. Jim fondles him through his clothes, rougher than Oswald would’ve liked, but he writhes under his hand all the same and finally does moan, balancing on the edge.

“You’re so responsive…” that voice again, so velvety and getting under his skin. Oswald feels so hot, and at the same time an inexplicable shiver runs down his spine. “But you can do more, can’t you?”

He naughtily licks Oswald’s ear and proceeds lower. Kisses his neck, slightly scraping it with his sharp teeth. The hand that was over his eyes also slides lower, to his lips, making Oswald part them more, and then it’s removed completely.

“Don’t open your eyes,” Oswald hears his deep voice again and it’s impossible to disobey that command. “I will stop if you look.”

Oswald shakes his head and shuts his eyes even closer. He doesn’t want Jim to stop, oh no!

“Good boy,” he smiles, if Jim’s voice is any indication, and pulls Oswald’s pants down. Oswald lifts his hips obediently, letting him, and lies still. He’s so tense, like a taut string, and Jim’s fingers wrapping around his cock draw a tremulous moan out of him.

Oswald bites on his lip. Jim’s hands, so sure and firm, wide palms and strong fingers - so many fantasies! - and now they caress him, move those fingers over the length of his cock, roughly, and slide over its head - it’s so sensitive it almost hurts.

“Jim, I… I’m gonna…”

“Not yet,” the hand loosens its grasp, leaving just a hint of that touch, and Oswald really wants to thrust his hips forward, find that wonderful hot palm again. “I want you to scream.”

What? What does Jim mean? Oswald is already on the verge of screaming when that hand grasps his cock again… He hears a rustling of clothes nearby, then a wet sound as if Jim is licking his lips, and then he feels his hot breath right over his cock, and - God, oh God, is Jim really going to take him into his mouth? He told him not to look, but, but - how could Oswald resist wanting to look at  _ this? _ He just has to watch this, burn the image into his memory once and for all! Oswald opens his eyes slightly, just slightly, pretending nothing’s afoot.

There’s no Jim next to him.

Instead there’s something impossible looming over Oswald, a figure woven from red and black clots and ligaments, oozing with black spikes, shaky and disgustingly solid at the same time. Its hand still grasps Oswald’s cock, and it looks inhuman but it feels like  _ Jim’s _ and, even though the figure has no face, Oswald knows its mouth is stretching in a horrible grin.

“Scream.”

Oswald screams. Everything around him wobbles before plunging into darkness, but the monster is still next to him, still holding him, and his nonexistent mouth is creeping slowly closer towards Oswald’s cock…

“Oswald! Oswald!”

Someone shakes him by his shoulders. His eyes are covered by something heavy and wet and Oswald panics, trying to wrestle himself free.

“Calm down, damn you!” the hands squeeze him firmer. His right shoulder is pierced with pain despite the fact that it’s grasped so much gentler, and Oswald yelps despite himself. It can’t hurt like that in a dream.

“Sorry,” comes a rough-ish apology, and that voice is…

“Jim?”

“Whom did you expect?”

Oswald recoils, but the hands are so firm over him, and his heart beats terribly in his throat, blocking his scream.

“Just perfect,” Jim grumbles, annoyed, but he lays Oswald down on the pillows carefully, almost gently. “You barge in here with a gunshot wound in your shoulder, spill blood all over the place, and now what? Fever?”

His eyes are freed from that wet something and Oswald blinks, disoriented, trying to focus. There’s Jim, that’s really him, bending over him - those serious blue eyes, that little familiar wrinkle between his eyebrows, pursed lips. He always pleased Oswald’s eye but right now he looks absolutely wonderful, and Oswald relaxes into the pillows and almost whimpers from relief.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jim asks, still grumbling, but Oswald hears it in his voice that Jim’s not angry with him, instead he’s… worried?

“It’s just… a bad dream,” Oswald says, and his voice sounds pathetic, as if he was a terrified child. Jim is going to laugh at him, no doubt! Oswald braces himself for that. No. He’s not going to cry.

Jim chuckles, but it’s not mocking, or at least, not only that.

“Didn’t think you could have bad dreams.”

“I’m an ordinary person, of course I can!”

“No…” Jim says, looming over him and watching his face. “You’re many things, but you’re certainly not ‘ordinary’.”

Oswald stills, not knowing how to react but it doesn’t look like Jim even expects him to. He reaches out with his hand to touch Oswald’s forehead lightly and frowns. Then something heavy and wet is put on Oswald’s forehead and he shudders with disgust.

“What? You don’t want the compress?”

“No… please, I don’t,” Oswald shakes his head.

“Alright, whatever you say,” Jim removes it. He leaves the bedroom carrying the compress in his hand - just a wet towel, and not a monster from the depths of Oswald’s subconsciousness.

Everything around him is so unfamiliar, but real and solid. He’s in Jim’s flat - who would’ve thought. Oswald’s known where he lived for a long time already, but he never thought he’d be bold enough to drop by for a visit. Well, some visit this is…

Jim walks into the bedroom with a big mug in his hand.

“You hungry?” he asks, sitting on the side of the bed next to him.

“No.”

“Too bad then, because you still gotta drink this soup,” Jim chuckles and hands him the mug, helping him hold it firmer. “Come on.”

“You cooked soup for me?” Oswald widens his eyes.

“You thought I didn’t know how? You can’t really survive on store-bought stuff, you know.”

“No, I meant…” that Jim went to all that trouble for him, that he takes care of him, and more than Oswald could’ve counted on, but how can he say that? He doesn’t want Jim to start thinking about it, what if he decides he’s done enough already and tells him to leave?

“Thank you,” Oswald says uneasily instead of all that. Jim hums and squeezes his hands softly with his own before letting go.

“Go on, drink it,” he says a little roughly, and waits.

Oswald drinks obediently. The broth is light, aromatic, with bits of chicken and some vegetables, and Oswald has no appetite at all but he can’t refuse Jim. His body is feeling pleasantly warmer.

“What were you dreaming about?” Jim asks.

Oswald stills. Here, awake, the nightmare seems so silly, but at the same time he still feels deeply disturbed by what he saw and what he felt. God. How can he tell Jim that, how can he explain that disgusting mix of horror and arousal, and especially when Jim is sitting right there next to him, and Oswald thought that Jim was touching him in his dream, and it felt so good…

“It’s just a nightmare… nothing special…” he mumbles into the mug, avoiding to look at him.

“You were calling my name,” Jim says bluntly. “Were you dreaming about me?”

Oswald nods and tries to hide behind the mug again, but he’s drank all of the soup already. He lowers his hands but he doesn’t look at Jim. Jim takes the mug from him and puts it on the nightstand, brushing Oswald’s fingers with his by accident, and it feels way too good for such a fleeting contact.

“I wonder what I’m doing in your dreams,” Jim says, pensive, and Oswald does look at him through his eyelashes then. Jim looks so tired. There are sad lines near his mouth, the wrinkle between his eyebrows is getting deeper, and it tugs at Oswald’s heart. He wants to erase that sadness and that exhaustion from Jim’s face…

“You were screaming and thrashing around so much,” Jim continues, watching him, and his eyes are searching for something, full of doubt. “Am I your nightmare, Oswald?”

“No!” Oswald protests, but it’s too fast - and even if it’s not a total lie, it’s not a total truth either, and by the look in Jim’s eyes Oswald knows that he knows that. “Yes…”

“So is it ‘yes’ or ‘no’? Are you afraid of me?”

Jim is so damn insistent. And Oswald would’ve never told him that, but he’s so mellow from warmth and Jim’s care, he’s lost a lot of blood, he’s been exhausted and traumatised by his nightmare, and he’s yearning so unbearably for the person sitting next to him.

“Jim… I can’t be afraid of you,” Oswald says, looking into his eyes and twisting the blanket in his hands. “But at the same time you’re the only person who can come up and plunge a knife into my heart, and I will never back away from you.”

“You… shouldn’t have told me that,” Jim utters tensely.

“You asked!”

“Yeah. I did.”

Jim closes his eyes and inhales deeply. His hand is somehow on top of Oswald’s now and holding on so tightly, bordering on being painful, but Oswald doesn’t even think of removing his hand from that grasp.

“You need sleep,” Jim says as if trying to convince himself, as if restraining himself, but he doesn’t move away. Instead, he lies on the bed, on top of the blanket and next to Oswald, and puts his arm around him in a very possessive manner. It almost seems like an embrace.

“Let’s see what dreams you’re going to have now, with your nightmare sleeping right next to you,” Jim chuckles.

When he falls asleep, his face relaxes, the frown is gone, and there’s a hint of a smile on his lips. Oswald could look at him forever, and he still can’t really believe that Jim is here with him, so close and so unguarded, and Oswald could’ve kissed him if he were bolder. If he could allow himself to be that greedy.

Oswald doesn’t fall asleep easily, but when he finally does no nightmare haunts him.


End file.
